


The Long Road Leads Here

by saiyanshewolf (gossamerstarsxx)



Series: Shot Through the Heart [10]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Action & Romance, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Battle Couple, Blood, Blood and Injury, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Feels, Feelings, Feels, Guilt, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Literal Sleeping Together, MacCready Needs A Hug, Major Character Injury, Men Crying, Non-Chronological, One Shot Collection, Pain, Panic, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Radiation Sickness, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Surprise Kissing, Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Violence, radiation poisoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 18:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18597178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gossamerstarsxx/pseuds/saiyanshewolf
Summary: With Antha by his side, MacCready takes on Med-Tek...but things don’t go according to plan.





	The Long Road Leads Here

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes** : When I was doing MacCready's personal quest, I remember thinking that it felt just a little too easy (then again, I play on easy, because I play video games to relax, not pull my hair out).
> 
> This fic started out as me wanting to make the Med-Tek stage of the quest feel appropriately dangerous, as well as appropriately terrifying for Mac, especially given his trauma where feral ghouls are concerned. (I ignored the bit of the quest concerning the password, because I feel like Mac is smart enough to have made it at least that far on his own.) Of course, I couldn't resist making it extra heart-wrenching and guilt-inducing for him, because dammit, Mac is one of those characters I just can't get enough of angst-ifying.
> 
> I also wanted to play with the perceptions the other companions have of him, how much they know about him, etc. I feel like he and Hancock are fairly close friends, but characters like Preston Garvey might only know him by reputation.
> 
>  **Warnings** : Blood, semi-graphic injury; mild suicidal ideation (see end notes for my hc on Stimpaks)
> 
> Sole Survivor is [Antha](https://saiyanshewolf.tumblr.com/tagged/my+sole+survivor).

# 1.

MacCready has made three failed attempts on Med-Tek.

The first one is hazy in his memory, a smear of pain and terror that had culminated in a horrible flashback to the night of Lucy's death before he ever made it near the second floor. He had fled the facility, bleeding, screaming, half out of his mind.

Months later, he had made a second attempt that proved even more disastrous than the first. Despite better preparations and a more cautious approach, he'd found himself overrun not long after reaching the second floor. Instead of retreating he had tried to fight his way through and had come close to getting himself killed.

His third try had ended much the same way as the second, although he'd gotten further along on the second floor that time. The ferals hadn't overrun him until he'd tried to drop to the third floor, and that time, at least, he'd been smart enough to run before they could tear him to shreds.

As Med-Tek appears on the horizon Antha falls back without a word to let him lead the way forward, and he has never been so grateful for her as he is in that moment. More than anyone else, she seems to understand how hard this is, how desperate and terrified he is to come here, and she doesn't waste time with asking if he's all right or how he wants to approach the situation; she waits, silent, and at length he leads on.

The grounds are clearer than they had been before, but upon closer inspection that doesn't surprise him. The dirt shows the heavy tracks of Power Armor - the Brotherhood of Steel have moved to town, and despite having little use for them he has to admit that their patrols keep the Commonwealth a little clearer along the main roads.

He and Antha pick off the few ferals left lurching around, then move inside. The first floor is clear; the second floor is safer than he remembers, but there are a few sleepers around. Easy pickings, but unnerving all the same.

"We need more info," he mumbles, "A blueprint of the facility would be great, but..."

"Just watch my back," Antha replies, kneeling in front of a working terminal and wiping the dust off the screen. "I'll see what I can dig up."

MacCready does as he's told, clearing rooms and keeping his eye on the doorways as they make their way through the second floor, stopping only for Antha to hack terminals and shuffle through ancient file folders to learn more about the facility and the cure.

"Prevent," she murmurs. "This must be the stuff, but..."

"Sinclair said the info would sound sketchy," MacCready replies, never taking his eyes off the shadowy, ruined space beyond the doorway. "But he trusted his source. Just wish he'd told me who that was before he disappeared. In any case, it's the only lead I've got."

"We'll get it, Mac." Antha leaves the terminal, shoving a folded sheet of paper into a pocket of her Vault suit. "I know where to go now, I think - follow me?"

MacCready hesitates, then nods. From that point on, Antha leads and he follows.

They soon find themselves unable to move further down. The jammed elevator and caved-in staircase force them to drop a fair distance through a hole in the floor into the dim corridor below.

The chaos begins the moment they land. From either side come the gurgling, throaty snarls of feral ghouls; gleaming yellow eyes fill the shadows.

He and Antha move back-to-back without a word, but MacCready is certain he wouldn't have heard her even if she had spoken. Blood roars in his ears, a deafening heartbeat throb; the report of his rifle and Antha's Magnum seem to come from a great distance, and it isn't until Antha cries out and flinches against his back that the world around him seems to become real again.

He fires once more, destroying the last feral on his side of the hallway in a spray of dead flesh and rotting brain matter, then steps in front of Antha and slams the butt of his gun into another feral's grotesque, jawless face. It shrieks in fury, swiping at MacCready with its filthy, clawlike hands and tearing open the sleeve of his shirt, but before he can turn to fire Antha extends her arm over his shoulder and fires the Magnum once more.

The sound is painful, but the feral ghoul goes down with the top of its head blown off.

MacCready slings his rifle around behind his back and turns to face Antha, ears ringing, heart racing. He grabs her by the shoulders.

"Are you all right?" he asks, "Did it get you? Are you bleeding? Do you need..."

"Mac, I'm fine," she says softly. "It got me in the side a little, that's all. The suit took most of it."

He injects her with a Stimpak over her protests, but when he suggests that he take point she tells him to drop the macho bullshit - not in so many words, of course, but he can read between the lines.

Shaken, he falls in behind her again.

That skirmish turns out to be the first of many. The ferals seem to multiply as they go deeper, forcing them to fight their way to the sub-levels. MacCready's heart remains lodged in his throat for what feels like hours.

After every encounter, Antha waits for his nod before moving forward. Only once does she ask if he's all right, and it isn't until she reaches up and swipes her thumb along his cheek that he realizes he's been slashed - it comes away slicked in blood.

"S'fine," he mumbles, wiping his face on the sleeve of his shirt. "L-let's go."

They move.

At length they descend to a floor made up of two levels with an open area in the center, and a windowed observation room on the far side. The stairs that should lead down to the second level are useless, a mangled mess of splintered wood and twisted steel. Small hospital rooms line both levels, most of them still sealed tight...and in several of those sealed rooms stand feral ghouls.

"What the hell was wrong with these doctors?!" MacCready whispers, torn between his usual horror of feral ghouls and the different horror of human depravity. "How could they just...turn off their morality like that?"

"Easy," Antha murmurs, crouching next to him in the doorway. "They couldn't turn off what they never had. Are you ready? I'm sure there's some sleepers around."

"Ready as I'll ever be," he sighs. "Lead on, boss."

It's the Protectron that fucks them over. The damn thing activates in the split second between Antha passing it and MacCready turning to follow her. The robot turns on them, blaring warnings about intruders and cutting them off from one another. Chaos ensues - screeching ferals, pneumatic steps, lasers, gunfire.

Antha, having made it to the side of the room with an intact path, sprints past the few ghouls that claw at her and heads straight for the observation deck, switching weapons as she goes. She kneels on the desk and bashes out the remains of the glass with the butt of her laser rifle, focusing her fire on the Protectron before it can turn him to Swiss cheese.

That leaves him with the feral ghouls, and there are a lot of them.

Heart pounding, MacCready bashes the butt of his rifle into an aggressive feral's already-ruined face. It's like shoving it into mud. The spongy skin sloughs away like the peel of an overripe tato and the soft, irradiated bones of the skull don't so much shatter as tear. There is a horrific squelching sound as the butt of his gun plunges into the thing's dead, rotting brain, and yet when he snatches it back in disgust the creature still slumps toward him, reaching for him with its claws, _screeching_ at him -

Disgusted, he takes a single step backward at the same time Antha turns the ghoul to dust with a well timed laser pulse. The ghoul doesn't get him, but a weak section of floor gives out beneath his weight and he falls about ten feet from the first level to the one below, landing in a tangle of broken hospital gurneys as Antha screams his name.

The jagged end of a metal rod punches deep into his hamstring, tearing fabric and skin and muscle before emerging on the outside of his thigh, radiating a sudden, jarring agony up and down his leg.

MacCready shoves the heel of his hand in his mouth before he can scream.

 _Motherfucker!_ He squeezes his eyes closed, biting into his hand, a few tears slipping down his scruffy cheeks, fighting off a wave of nausea. It's all he can do not to spit every swear word he knows out loud.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck!_

It isn't even that this is the worst pain he's endured; laser turret burns take that prize, but it's bad enough, and if the rod has clipped an artery, it could get worse.

A lot worse.

He takes several deep, steadying breaths, until he's able to take his hand out of his mouth without screaming or swearing. Ghouls shuffle and snarl in the surrounding rooms, dim, misshapen forms behind dirty glass, and somewhere above him Antha is still sniping.

The broken gurneys had partially collapsed under his weight, and he lies in an awkward position among the bars and rods. The lower half of his body tilts toward the floor, but his feet don't touch it; he's hanging by his skewered thigh unless he can pull himself up and off with his upper body - a movement that might attract the ferals. There's also the chance that moving will make the gurneys collapse further, putting him at risk for being stabbed somewhere more life-threatening. It's dangerous to remove the rod, too, but unless he actually has clipped an artery, he has enough sense and Stimpaks to keep from bleeding out.

MacCready is so preoccupied that he doesn't see the ghoul shuffling toward him until it shrieks and breaks into a sprint. Two more follow it from different directions, and by some miracle his reflexes take over and he drops two with his rifle before they reach him.

He has no time to reload before the third - coming at him from behind his right shoulder - slashes at his chest.

Before he is even aware of moving MacCready has his combat knife in his hand, driving it into the thing's soft skull, again and again, long after it has slumped dead across his body. He doesn't stop until the top half of its head tears free, rolling down his chest to the floor, leaving sloughed off bits of skin and rotted grey clumps of brain matter across his clothes.

Revolted panic seizes him and he tries to scramble away, forgetting where he is, what's happened to him, forgetting everything except his fear of ghouls and the rising nausea in his gut.

The gurneys shift. His feet hit the floor. Off balance and taken off guard, he reels forward.

The metal rod rips his flesh like threadbare cloth.

MacCready hits his knees and screams.

The pain is sickening, overwhelming. Blood flows down the back of his thigh in a gush of warmth, gluing his pants to his skin and flooding his nose with a thick metallic scent.

"Fuck," he hisses, "Mother _fuck!"_

It helps.

_Sorry, kiddo._

After another moment or two he limp-crawls toward the wall, shifting his weight with his hands and his good leg until it's at his back. Breathless and trembling with pain, he takes stock.

The blood is coming in a steady flow, rather than spurting in time with his racing heart - a good sign. His fall has agitated the ferals on this level, but none have broken through the glass, and above him Antha's shots have slowed to a near halt.

With shaking hands he unwinds his scarf and wraps it tight around his thigh before injecting himself with a Stimpak and picking up his rifle. The scope isn't night-vision, but there's enough ambient light for him to be sure there are no more stray ferals lurking in the corners.

MacCready concentrates on his breathing to slow his racing heart. Antha soon stops firing altogether, and several minutes pass by in silence; the moment he hears her moving above him, the locked-in ghouls renew their screeching chorus, accompanied by the fleshy _slap-clap_ of decayed hands pounding against ancient glass.

"Mac? I'm dropping down, so don't shoot me." Antha's voice is little more than a whisper; a moment later her feet emerge from the ledge of the floor above. She shimmies down, hanging by her hands and shortening her fall from ten feet to five; when she drops, she lands in an unsteady crouch, tumbling backward onto her ass into the trail of blood he had left in his wake.

"Shit," she whispers, scrambling to her feet and hurrying to his side. "Shit, I knew you were hurt, but I didn't...how bad?"

"Bad enough." He jerks his chin toward the tangled wreck of gurneys. "Fell on that. Went through my thigh."

Antha turns, stiffening in horror at the sight of the jagged, bloodstained steel rod jutting out of the pile.

"Shit," she repeats, her voice wavering as she examines the hasty bandage he had created from his scarf. "You're bleeding through - Stimpak?"

MacCready nods, his mouth set in a tense, grim line. The pain is bearable, but the pain isn't the problem - it's the blood loss.

"Okay." Antha takes a deep, steadying breath. "It's okay. We just need to get you up to the obser..."

Glass shatters above them, punctuated by an eldritch crescendo of screeching ghouls.

"Fuck." Antha's mouth twists into a sneer of frustration, her expression shifting from concern to hatred within the space of a moment. "Goddamn ferals...c'mon, we've gotta move."

Before he can protest Antha slings his rifle across her back and drags his arm over her shoulders, forcing him up onto his good leg so quickly that his vision darkens around the edges. He stumbles and tries to catch himself on his bad leg out of reflex. Pain jolts through his thigh and echoes down to his toes and before he can bite his tongue, he's said _fuck_ again.

He can't help but wonder if that's a bad omen.

"Can you do this?" Antha whispers. "Tell me now. I'll carry you if I need to but I'll have to take off my armor."

MacCready snorts bitter laughter. "Like to see you try. Nah, I can do it."

"You're not that heavy, Mac."

"Oh no, I get that," he answers, "But I'd shoot myself before I'd let you get killed by ghouls dragging my dead weight around. Where are we trying to go, anyway?"

"There's an empty room up there with a floor that's collapsed on an incline," she answers. "Door's locked up above, but I can pick it or force it - it was just quicker to drop. The collapse leads into that room over there - it doesn't have a door, so no ghouls should take us by surprise. After that we'll head to the observation room I was in. I can take out the ones up top with the Magnum as long as there aren't too many. Can you make that?"

MacCready grits his teeth. "We'll find out. Lead on, boss."

# 2.

By the time Antha lowers him into one of the rolling office chairs in the observation room, MacCready's upper leg feels as if it has been filled with fire. Worse, his scarf had come loose as they hobbled across the upper floor, and neither of them had dared to pause long enough to re-tie it with the ferals screeching and slapping at the glass of their prisons.

Antha herself is quieter than usual, but MacCready attributes it to his own silence. As they had made their slow way toward the observation room, the familiar feeling of failure had settled over him like a black cloud. Sure, he'd gotten farther than he ever had thanks to Antha's help, but he'd still fallen short of getting his hands on the cure.

 _Literally._ He scowls at himself, watching as Antha injects him with another Stimpak and unwinds his scarf to wring it out. _I'm not getting out of here. Not like this._

Antha isn't unscathed, either. He hadn't been able to tell in the shadows below (and had been too preoccupied with not blacking out on the way up), but there's an ugly gash down her unscarred cheek, her nose is bleeding, and her knuckles are split and bruised.

_But she can walk._

She pours vodka from her flask over a thick wad of bandaging from one of her pockets, presses it against the wound in his leg, and binds it in place with his wrung-out scarf. It's so tight it's almost uncomfortable.

"You need to elevate it," she mumbles, glancing around the room. "The desk is too high...ah. Here we go."

There's a barred armory in the corner of the room, its door standing open. Antha rolls him inside, and because she comes in after him, he thinks nothing of it.

She maneuvers the chair into the corner, putting the back of it against the solid walls and stacking an empty wooden ammo crate on top of two smaller steel ammo boxes laid on their sides. It's the perfect height, but for the life of him, MacCready doesn't understand why she's bothering.

"Boss, you're gonna have to leave me here," he mutters. "I'm never gonna make it back up that drop like this."

"I know," she says softly. "That's why you're in here. You'll be safe until help comes."

MacCready starts to nod, then stops, staring at his injured leg with widening eyes.

_Until help comes. Not until she can get help, come back with help..._

He turns his head and glares at her, grabbing her by the arm as he opens his mouth to speak.

Antha leans down and kisses him before he can say a word.

Heat floods his body and his heartbeat pounds in his ears as everything he was going to say, every word he's ever known disappears from his mind. She opens her mouth over his and traces the edge of his lip with her tongue, curling her fingers into his hair, and before he can think to stop himself or push her away, he releases her arm and slips his hand behind her neck, pulling her closer and kissing her back.

Antha shudders, fingers tightening in his hair. It seems both an eternity and a matter of seconds before she pulls away and leans her forehead against his, her brilliant green eyes welling with tears.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and understanding clicks in his mind a second too late.

She steps back and out of the armory before MacCready can grab her, slamming the door and turning the key in the lock.

Clenching his teeth, hating himself for falling for it, hating himself more for what it means, MacCready lifts his head and glares at her through the bars of his little prison.

"That's cold, boss," he sneers. "Real friggin cold."

Antha nods and swallows hard, swiping tears off her cheeks with bloodstained hands. "I'm sorry. I just - I had...I had to distract you before you could stop me, and that was...it was the first thing I thought of. Mac, I'm so sorry. You wouldn't let me go on if I didn't..."

"Damn right I wouldn't," he snaps. "Antha, what the hell?! You saw all those ferals! It's only gonna get worse!"

"I'll be fine, Mac," she says, "And so will you, okay?"

To his horror, Antha unbuckles her Pip-Boy and pushes it through the bars onto the nearest shelf, nudging it into MacCready's reach without giving him an opportunity to grab her.

"I set this to broadcast a Morse code signal on the Minutemen's frequency - it's my personal S.O.S. signal, so they'll be sure to come. We're not so far down that the signal won't carry, and I sent a message to Preston before we left, anyway. If I don't report in for a couple days he'll have every settlement looking for the signal on their radios."

Fear rises in his chest at the implication of her words, eating through his anger like acid.

"Antha, please," he says, desperation creeping into his voice. "Don't. Either get help or wait with me, but don't go down there alone. Please. Okay?"

Antha averts her eyes, stepping away from the armory and picking up his rifle from the desk where she'd laid their weapons earlier. She hands it to him through the bars, keeping herself well out of reach.

MacCready takes it, leaning it against the wall next to him, wishing his heart would get out of his throat so he could breathe.

"There's ammo in the boxes on the shelf across from you - .308s and .10mm, even though I know you're terrible with handguns," she says, turning her back to him and picking up her sniper and her laser rifle. "There's purified water, Stimpaks, and anti-rads in the other three next to you."

Still unable to speak past the lump in his throat, MacCready opens the steel ammo cases next to him.

Panic marches up his spine like a parade of spiders as he remembers the length of silence between Antha's last shot and her dropping down to him.

"Antha?!" His voice is high, sharp. "Boss, what the hell?! You planned this!"

"I knew you were hurt," she answers, pleading. "Hurt, but not dead - I heard you screaming and swearing..."

"That's not - An, Christ! That's not why I'm mad! This is everything you had!"

"It's not everything," she says, still refusing to look him in the eye. "I've still got a couple Stimpaks and one of both anti-rads."

"Antha, no!" He shoves the ammo crates toward her, wishing he could stand up without stumbling or swaying, because watching Antha sling her weapons across her back sends adrenaline flooding through him to the point that he's trembling.

"Mac..."

"I said _no,_ goddammit," he snaps, "Have you lost your mind? I won't need -"

"You will if you're stuck here for a few days," Antha says, raising her voice just enough to cut him off. "All right?"

MacCready's breath locks in his throat. A vise tightens around his chest until it seems his pounding heart might break his ribs. His mind flashes back to the metro station, and it's no longer just Lucy he sees being torn apart, it's both of them, Lucy and Antha, both screaming his name until it echoes in his head, until he's fighting the urge to scream along with them.

_She'll die._

His throat hurts, his chest hurts, he's shaking and he can't make it stop.

_She'll die, she'll die like Lucy died, she'll die because of me, because she's trying to help me, she'll die trying to save my kid when she hasn't even found her own -_

He clenches his fists to stop the trembling, hating himself, looking up at Antha even though the sight of her triggers such a tide of emotion that he's afraid he won't be able to keep his mouth shut, won't be able to control what comes out of it.

"Antha, you can't do this," he says, his voice rising as he speaks, "You can't - I can't - I can't let you do this, I won't!"

"Robert Joseph MacCready!"

He stops short, cowed by Antha's fierce green eyes fixing on his for the first time since she locked him in.

"You do not tell me what to do," she hisses, "Do you understand me?"

"Antha, please, please just listen -"

"No. You listen to me," she snaps. "My son might be alive but he wouldn't know me if he saw me. Sure, I know where he is. Might as well be the fucking moon. I lost him, Mac, I lost my son and if I find him, he may not even want me, so I'll be goddamn if I let you lose yours while there's something I can do to stop it!"

MacCready stares at her, throat working as he tries to swallow, tries to figure out a way to respond that will stop her, convince her.

There isn't one, and as the adrenaline recedes a heavy, hopeless weight settles into his chest. There is nothing he can do, nothing he can say. He does his best to resign himself to that, but he can't. He can't make himself be okay with this, can't even make himself pretend.

"Please, Junebug, don't do this." His voice is unsteady, near to breaking. "I'm begging you. If those things get you, I...I don't know what I..."

"Mac, hush." Antha smiles at him, her expression softening. "You'll be all right, I promise."

"I'm not worried about me," he answers. "You know that."

"I know," she replies. "Mac, I'm sorry I tricked you, but I promise I will do everything in my power to get back to you. As soon as I get the cure."

She tosses the key into the armory as she heads toward the door. He catches it, but her smile can't touch the misery sitting in his chest. Even if he let himself out and tried to follow her, his leg wouldn't let him get far; he can't protect her, can't even overpower her.

With a heavy, trembling sigh, MacCready sweeps tears off his scruffy cheeks and swallows past the lump in his throat.

"At least be careful," he says, needing to say goodbye without using the word. "All right? None of that running headlong into danger crap, you do like I taught you. Go slow and go quiet, find one-shot kills, use cover, get above them if you can but make sure you won't fall -"

Antha glances back over her shoulder, her smile widening into a grin. "Of course. I learned from the best, right? See you soon."

And then she's gone, disappearing around the curve leading from the observation room to the floor below. A few minutes later he hears a shot, but it's distant, dull.

The next few are even more distant.

Soon, he hears nothing at all.

Somehow that's worse.

# 3.

Three hours pass.

It's a miserable, interminable length of time that seems to last decades despite all MacCready's attempts to distract himself. Thinking about what's happening to Antha god knows how many levels below him makes him feel as if his brain might vibrate out of his skull, so he does his best not to think of anything at all.

He had dragged Antha's Pip-Boy into his lap not long after she left and he's been playing and re-playing the holotape game she left in it ever since, to the point that he's sure he's going cross-eyed. It takes him around an hour to beat the game, and every other time he wins he jabs himself with another Stimpak and drinks some water.

Around the third time he beats _Grognak the Barbarian and the Ruby Ruins,_ he realizes that he's getting lightheaded. When he looks up, the world around him lurches.

 _Great,_ he thinks, jabbing himself with another Stimpak. _Must be the blood loss._

It's nowhere near as dire as it was back in the Gunner base when he'd been shot twice in the shoulder, but it's bad enough. He won't die, but as the fourth hour passes, he finds himself nodding off over _Grognak._

Against his will, MacCready falls asleep.

Hours later he wakes himself by screaming Antha's name, flailing upright in the office chair with his heart racing and his leg stiff and sore. Breathing like a hunted thing, he scans the room, half expecting to see what he had seen in his nightmares: Antha's mutilated corpse laid out in front of his prison, where the ghouls had left her after tearing her apart in front of his eyes.

She isn't there, dead or otherwise, and he isn't sure if he's relieved or terrified.

After he gets control of his breathing, he checks the time on Antha's Pip-Boy.

She's been gone for six hours.

MacCready's stomach sinks.

_That's too long. It's way too long._

His hands shake. He curls them into fists.

_She's dead. Somewhere down there my nightmare came true._

He's still shaking. After a moment, a sob tears its way out of his throat and he bashes his head into the concrete wall behind him, trying to stop it, not wanting to cry even now, when there's no one left alive to hear.

He tries it two more times before he gives in, pulling his good knee up to his chest and burying his face in his folded arms, letting the tears wrack him the way they had after Lucy died, crying himself into a state of exhausted unconsciousness.

It's far better than being awake.

# 4.

The armory door rattles.

Exhausted or not, MacCready still has his rifle in his hands and up to his shoulder almost before he's opened his eyes, expecting to find a horde of ghouls bearing down on him.

Instead, it's Antha.

He lowers his rifle, mouth falling open in shock, convinced that he must be dreaming, but when he scrambles to his feet, the agony that courses down his wounded leg proves otherwise. With shaking hands he rummages in his pocket for the key and reaches through the bars of the armory to unlock the door, hobbling out to meet her with no regard for either pain or dizziness.

Antha reels backward as the door opens and sits down hard on the desk behind her, next to the terminal. She is pale as death, shaking and swaying as she blinks up at him, her eyes drifting in and out of focus, and MacCready's shock gives way to horror.

Slash marks score her neck, some of them so deep it's a miracle they hadn't caught an artery. The torn parts of her Vault suit are bloodstained a sick, shiny purple; the worst of these is in her side, where ghoul claws have shredded her suit and deep into the skin beneath. They had even damaged her armor, tearing a few of the smaller straps and leaving ugly gouge marks in the thicker pieces across her chest and thighs.

Before he can speak Antha lifts her left hand, fumbling with a pocket on her belt. Her skin is tacky with half-dried blood and she has bound her last two fingers together - the top half in gauze, secured below with duct tape.

The gauze is dripping red.

"Antha," he whispers, limping toward her, "An, I...let me..."

She waves him off with her good hand as her two unbound fingers finally slip the knot keeping the pocket closed. With a delirious grin, she pulls out something wrapped in thick layers of mostly clean white gauze and offers it to him in her open palm.

MacCready's mouth runs dry as he accepts the little package. He peels back the layers of gauze to reveal a red syringe. The label reads _PREVENT_ in white block letters.

The tremor in his hands intensifies.

"Oh god," he whispers, "Oh god."

This.

This is what he tried to get his hands on three separate times, at the cost of his own blood.

This is the reason for so many scars and sleepless nights.

This is what Arcade was trying to create for the past year.

This is Duncan's life.

Antha has given him Duncan's life.

Still shaking, MacCready claps a hand over his mouth as tears blur his eyes. He's done enough crying today to last himself years, but the tide of emotion rising in his chest doesn't care. His voice breaks on Antha's name and the only thing that stops him from throwing his arms around her is the fact he'll hurt her.

She grins at him again, opening her mouth to speak as she reaches out to touch his arm with her good hand...and then her expression dissolves into wide-eyed shock and she stumbles away from him into the doorway, leaning against it with trembling shoulders as if she's wracked by some terrible fever.

"Antha?!"

When she doesn't respond, MacCready wraps up the syringe and tucks it into an inside pocket of his duster, swallowing his awe and his gratitude to deal with what's in front of him. He limps toward her and touches her shoulder.

"Hey, Junebug, look at me," he murmurs.

Antha turns her head, but her green eyes are distant, glassy. After a moment she falls to her knees, gagging and dry heaving.

MacCready's blood runs cold as he kneels down next to her, heedless of both the mess and his own injuries, and pulls her shoulders back.

"Boss. Look at me," he repeats.

Antha only closes her eyes, covering her mouth and nose in the crook of her elbow as she shakes her head. A moment later she wrenches away from him and leans over, vomiting bright red onto the dirty white linoleum.

Fear lances through him like a hot knife.

"Antha," he whispers, "Antha, hey, it's okay, you're gonna be okay, I'll be right back, all right?"

She nods, shuddering, and heaves up yet more blood.

MacCready shoves himself to his feet, ignoring the deep jab of pain in his thigh and the rush of warmth that follows as he limps back into the armory and grabs the ammo box full of anti-rads that Antha had left with him. He brings them to her, not so much sitting as falling down beside her.

"Hang on, Junebug," he mumbles, hacking off one sleeve of her Vault suit with his combat knife and cutting away a long strip of it to tie above the crook of her arm. "Just hang on, don't you dare go ghoul on me, all right?"

Antha spits out one of her molars and grins at him with blood in her teeth, reaching into one of the many pockets of her Vault suit with her good hand. She pulls out her flask and hands it to him.

"Your hands are shaking," she mumbles, slumping back against the doorway as if speaking takes all her energy.

She has a point. MacCready doesn't much like vodka, but he doesn't need to like it; he knocks back the rest of the flask and sets it to the side, taking a couple deep breaths before he binds her arm and loads the first syringe with RadAway.

"Make a fist," he mumbles, and as Antha does as she's told he feels for her vein, praying he won't fuck this up.

Antha winces as the needle pricks her arm, but he gets it right on the first try. Even the second dose goes in smoothly.

"You out of gauze?" he asks, glancing up at her before he pulls the second needle out.

Antha nods without opening her eyes. "Sorry."

"Don't be." He struggles to keep his voice steady as he grabs the remains of her sleeve and folds it into a square, pressing it over the crook of her arm and drawing the needle out. "Don't be sorry for a damn thing."

They sit together in silence after that, Antha's arm propped on his good knee as he holds pressure on the injection site far longer than necessary. She drifts in and out of consciousness, but she isn't sick again, nor does she spit out any more teeth.

MacCready holds her arm and watches her face, watches the color bloom back into her cheeks as the anti-rads take effect. It's better to do that, to look at her face instead of her injuries, instead of trying to imagine the hell she'd gone through for him.

For Duncan.

# 5.

Half an hour later, just as MacCready is dozing off again, the ghouls trapped in the rooms below screech in fury. Glass shatters.

MacCready slides his good leg beneath himself and stands up, limping to the desk and grabbing Antha's sniper, but before he can aim a chorus of laser shots go off, bringing the screeching sounds to an abrupt halt.

Below him stand a dozen Minutemen - six on the upper level, six below, all facing toward sealed hospital rooms with their laser rifles against their shoulders - as well as Preston Garvey, who waves at him from near the empty Protectron dock.

"MacCready! Is the General with you?"

Relief floods him. He leans against the desk, taking the weight off his bad leg.

"Garvey, I take back every dumb joke I've ever made about the Minutemen," he calls out. "Yeah, Antha's up here with me. Neither of us are gonna be much good in the walking department."

"Not a problem. We brought along a couple of medics just in case," Garvey answers, directing the Minutemen toward the stairs leading up to the observation room. "We'll get you both up to the foyer and tend to your injuries there."

"Mac."

MacCready turns away from the window and looks down at Antha. Her green eyes are still hazy, and it's still taking her longer that he'd like to focus.

"Don't wait for me," she mumbles, "Okay? Don't. Go. Soon as they get you fixed up, you go."

"Antha, I..."

"Do what I say and be nice to my dog," she says, giving him a weak approximation of a grin as the Minutemen appear behind her. "Don't wait for me."

MacCready doesn't have a chance to respond. The Minutemen are asking him questions, grabbing his and Antha's weapons, and he directs them as best he can, pointing out everything that Antha had left in the armory, explaining how many doses of RadAway he'd given her, how many Stimpaks he'd taken, estimating how well he could walk. By the time the Minutemen are ready to move out, Antha is out cold in Garvey's arms while MacCready limps behind them between the two medics.

He's so lightheaded that he barely remembers the trip back up; they are in the Med-Tek foyer before he knows it, with one medic preparing to stitch up his thigh and the other loading another syringe of RadAway for Antha.

_"Don't wait for me."_

MacCready pats his duster, feeling the syringe next to his heart.

"Cauterize it," he mumbles, sitting up a little. "I've got somewhere to be."

The medic cocks an eyebrow. "I don't recommend..."

"You heard me," MacCready says, "Listen, this is an emergency, all right? I've got to deliver something important and I can't stop for torn stitches or crap like that. Just cauterize the damn thing."

"That why you two were down here?" Garvey asks, turning toward him with one eyebrow raised. "Looking for this delivery you've got to make?"

"Antha can tell you about it later," MacCready sighs, watching as the medic lights a small fire to heat the cauterizing iron from his pack. "Tell her I said it's fine, just...just take care of her. Okay? Where are you gonna take her?"

"Diamond City," Garvey answers, "Doctor Sun is better than our field medics, and she has Home Plate to stay in while she recovers. We'll have her there in a few days."

MacCready nods, tensing himself as the medic wraps a length of cloth around the handle of the cauterizing iron and pulls it out of the fire. He gives MacCready a pointed look, as if to double check; when MacCready nods the medic presses the iron to his skin.

It hurts. A lot.

MacCready grits his teeth and manages not to make a sound. Once it's over, the medic slathers the burned skin in antiseptic and wraps it up again, injecting him with a Stimpak for good measure.

"Stand," he says, putting out the fire and moving the still-hot iron out of the way.

MacCready gets to his feet and pretends that it isn't killing him to walk. "Great. Can I go now?"

"I can't stop you," the medic sighs, gathering up his tools and going to help the other one with Antha.

MacCready can't help himself. He follows, gazing down at Antha's scarred, sleeping face.

"She gonna be okay?" he asks, and his voice is too low, too rough.

"Eventually," the first medic says, unraveling the makeshift gauze-and-duct tape bandage on Antha's fingers. "The radiation poisoning is severe, but not enough to...oh, god."

MacCready stares down at Antha's hand. His stomach churns.

The skin has been stripped from her fingers down to the knuckle, like insulation on a wire. Her fingernails are gone and her ring finger is too short, the tip showing the white of bone.

"I hope whatever you found was worth it, MacCready," Garvey says quietly.

He can't answer. Guilt rises in his throat until he thinks he might be sick.

Antha opens her eyes, squinting up at Garvey with a scowl on her face.

"It was," she mutters. "Leave him alone."

Garvey nods, moving away to join the other Minutemen who are scouring the top floor for anything useful.

"Mac," Antha breathes, "Get out of here, already."

"Antha, I...I don't..."

She rolls her eyes, but it's clear she's in pain. "You don't have to say anything, Mac. Go. You've got more important things to worry about than me."

"We're about to give her Med-X," the medic says, looking up at MacCready with cool, impatient eyes. "If you have something to say..."

"He doesn't." Antha looks up at him again, eyebrow arched. "Do you?"

"Yes," he mumbles. "Antha, thank you."

On impulse, he leans down and kisses her forehead, turning away and jerking his hat down low over his eyes before he can see her expression.

"Take care of her or I'll shoot you," he mutters, then hurries out the door while he still has the strength to leave.

# 6.

MacCready makes it to Goodneighbor within three days - he'd hoped for two, but his leg slows him down more than he had expected, and the pain keeps him from getting any real rest.

Daisy sends the cure out with the next outgoing caravan and MacCready gives her the caps to hire half a dozen extra guards and two extra scouts; there's no way he'll be able to make the trip in his condition, no matter how much he wants to. He intends to turn around and go to Diamond City that night, but Daisy won't hear of it.

"My nose may have fallen off a century ago, but I can tell you reek just by looking at you," she mutters, stirring up the smoldering coal bed under her bathtub and running water into it. "There's Rad-X in the cabinet, take it before you get in - Goodneighbor's purifier has been acting up. And give me your clothes so I can wash out the blood and feral brains."

"Daisy, you don't have to..."

"I know I don't," she sighs, as if she's said this more times than she cares to count. "Drop your clothes out the door, I've got enough lying around the shop for you to cover up with until yours dry. You can tell me about it when you're clean."

It's more pointless to argue with Daisy than it is to argue with Antha. MacCready does as he's told, scrubbing off dried blood and caked-on dust, trying not to think about the caravan, the pain in his leg, Antha, or anything except getting clean.

He spends the evening wearing a hideous floral housecoat, eating radstag and tato stew, and reiterating the whole awful, amazing story to Daisy while she stitches up his torn duster and shirt.

# 7.

As much as MacCready wishes he could have been there when Antha got to Diamond City, he's grateful to Daisy for making him eat and clean up before he left Goodneighbor. Granted, he still didn't get any sleep, but at least he no longer feels so much like a dead thing.

When he walks into Home Plate early in the morning on the fourth day after leaving Med-Tek, he finds himself accosted by Piper, speaking a mile a minute, asking him rapid-fire questions as she harangues him over Antha's condition.

"What were you after down there and why did you have to drag Blue into it?!" she snaps, her eyes burning into him. "And why the hell did you leave her after you almost got her killed?! Were you that eager to sell whatever the hell it was you found down there?!"

"Piper, cool it," Nick says. He takes her arm, but synth or not, the look he gives MacCready as he pulls her away is withering. The two of them turn away to speak to Preston Garvey as he appears from the door of Antha's bedroom.

MacCready's throat works. He wants to defend himself, but there's no way to do it without starting a conversation he's too emotionally exhausted to have - a conversation that's none of Piper's business to begin with. Still, her accusations hurt more than he'd thought possible, and he sinks down onto a nearby couch next to Hancock with his face in his hands.

"Sorry, Creed," Hancock mumbles. "I know what you two were doin' down there, but I didn't think it was my place to tell anyone your business."

"Thanks," MacCready sighs. "How is she?"

"She'll be fine. I didn't know ya were still around, thought you'd be halfway back to the Capital Wasteland. I'd have waited and come with from Goodneighbor."

"Long story," MacCready answers, "But even if it wasn't, I'm not walking so great at the moment. Caravan will get there faster."

"Get nibbled on?"

"No, I fell and got kebab'd through the thigh," he answers, grimacing. "I made 'em cauterize it but I'm starting to think that wasn't a great idea. Still hurts like a bih - still hurts pretty bad."

"When d'ya think your kid will let ya swear again?" Hancock asks, grinning.

MacCready can't help but laugh at that. It's already a little easier to talk about Duncan, knowing that the cure is on its way.

Across the room, Piper's voice rises to a fierce snarl. "Are you insane?! He left her, after all that -"

"Piper, let the man speak," Nick sighs, and the three of them go back to their hushed discussion.

"I'll tell 'em if ya want," Hancock says, glancing down at MacCready with his oil-slick eyes. "We've already seen her - Piper and Nick were around when she came in yesterday and I came in late that evening. Slept on the couch in case she needed anything. Figured I'd let those two sleep in their own beds. They just got back a bit ago, but Garvey's been in there talking with Antha forever. I guess about you."

"I told him to tell Antha it was okay to explain it to him," MacCready answers, scrubbing his hands over his face. "So sure, what the hell. Tell 'em. But do it after they leave. I don't wanna deal with the sympathy, all right? I'm too friggin exhausted for it. And if Piper opens her mouth about it to another damn soul, I'll...I dunno. Be mad. I can't shoot her 'cause Antha likes her."

"Ain't got much sleep the past few days, huh?" Hancock asks.

"None. So excuse the rambling."

"Of course."

Not long later, Garvey convinces Piper and Nick that they should continue this conversation outside to keep from disturbing Antha. Hancock gets up to go with them, nodding to MacCready before cutting off whatever angry remark Piper had ready to go by suggesting they all head to the Dugout.

The moment the door closes behind them, Antha calls his name.

"Mac? I know you're out there, what the hell are you doing here?"

He pokes his head around the corner into her bedroom, bewildered. "Uh, should I not be...? If you're mad, I'll -"

"Mad? God, no," she says. "I just figured you'd be on your way back to the Capital Wasteland by now. Sorry about Piper. She's...well. I had an older sister who yelled at Nate kind of like that a couple times. I would have told her, but it wasn't my place. Took me awhile to believe Preston when he said you'd told him it was okay."

Antha waves him in, sitting up in bed. She's wearing an ancient Nuka-Cola t-shirt and pajama shorts, and as she moves, he sees the outline of bandages over her side. White gauze binds both forearms, as well as the ring and pinky fingers of her left hand, and while the wounds on her throat are closed, they are still red and angry-looking.

"So why aren't you on your way back?" she asks and MacCready sinks down onto the edge of her bed.

MacCready explains his decision about the caravan, rubbing the back of his neck and staring at the floor between his boots.

"Besides," he says at length, finally glancing up at her, "You think I'd leave without saying thank you? Or at least goodbye?"

Antha shrugs. "Mac, it's your son. I wouldn't have blamed you even if I never heard from you again."

MacCready swallows the lump in his throat with some difficulty. The idea of doing that to her is unfathomable; within the last year she's become as important to him as Arya and Butch ever were, but he can't find the words to explain that to her.

"How are you feeling?" he asks at length.

"I'm over the rad poisoning. I'm just weak as hell and it'll take me awhile to get my energy back. They stitched up my side, but everything else will heal on its own soon enough. I have to jab myself with a Stimpak every couple hours, but honestly, Piper was exaggerating. Just because I got beat up by a Glowing One she thinks..."

MacCready goes pale. "Christ, Antha, a _Glowing One?"_

"Guess I didn't have time to tell you." Antha shrugs. "It's not a big deal. I've encountered them before, I just let this one get a little too close. The cure was in the basement lab. Saw it through the window, but I had to hack a terminal unlock it. Took awhile, I got impatient, and I forgot to scope out the room before I waltzed in. I grabbed the syringe and wrapped it up and got it in my pocket, and the next thing I knew I was getting my throat raked open by a green ghoul."

"How did you...?"

"Well, I saw my necklace hit the floor - you know, the cord with Nate's ring on it? So I bent down and grabbed it and shoved it into my Vault suit, but the thing got me in the side as I stood up, and then it was all over me - had me pinned to the counter like a pushy date. So I, uh. I punched it."

MacCready stares at her, incredulous. "You...you punched it."

"In the face."

"You punched a Glowing One. In the face. With your left hand."

"I had the Magnum in my right..."

"Why didn't you shoot it?!"

"Hadn't reloaded."

"You could have hit it with the gun!"

"Look, I'm not claiming to be some kind of ghoul-fighting genius," Antha answers, her face turning red. "It just happened. I punched it in the face left-handed and it tried to bite my hand off. It only got my last two fingers, but while it was chewing my fist, I regained some sense and hit it in the head with the .44 and put some distance between us. Except I ran the wrong way. Toward a broken fusion core."

"So you were standing still in concentrated radiation, reloading a Magnum, with open wounds."

"Like a dumbass, yes." Antha sighs, shaking her head. "I swear, I did everything right until then. I was trying so hard to do what you taught me, take my time and all that. And I did - probably took out eighty percent of the ghouls between you and that Glowing One without them ever knowing I was there, and the few that sneaked up on me I was able to take out with the Magnum. I just...fucked up at the end. Didn't even have my RadAway because I'd taken it after I had to go through a floor full of leaking reactors, thinking I wouldn't encounter anything more radioactive than that. So of course I got torn open by a monster so irradiated that it fucking _glows in the dark,_ and of course I cornered myself next to a cracked fusion core. I even lost my damn ring - I think it fell off when my hand got covered in blood."

MacCready's eyes widen. "Your - wait, you lost your wedding ring?"

Antha nods. "I didn't notice until I was halfway back. I just...fell apart at the end. Like I always do. I came close to ruining everything."

"Don't," he says softly. "Antha, don't. Please. It's my fault you were down there. Piper got that much right."

Antha cocks an eyebrow. "Mac, are you kidding? You didn't ask me to go, I took you there. Hell, you're the one that begged me not to go on after you got hurt. I played a pretty dirty trick on you and literally locked you behind bars just so you wouldn't be able to stop me."

Heat rises into his cheeks and he drops his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck again. He hasn't thought about the kiss since it happened; Antha's return, her injuries, and his painful, sleepless trek to Goodneighbor had pushed it out of his mind.

"Yeah, well," he mumbles, "You know what I mean. And I'm...I'm sorry about your ring."

Antha shrugs, but the smile she gives him is a little false. "It had been loose for a while - I've lost weight since I thawed. I guess with my hand covered in blood it just slipped off. I still managed to hang on to Nate's. Might stop wearing it, though. Just in case anything else goes after my throat."

MacCready nods, unsure of what he should say. Knowing that Antha had lost her wedding ring - and part of the finger that went with it - horrifies him, the guilt sitting on his chest like a lead weight. The only thing that exceeds the depth of his guilt is his gratitude, but his mind is so fried that he can't even begin to figure out how to apologize to her or thank her.

He doesn't realize he's crying until Antha sits up and reaches for him, cradling his face in her hands and swiping tears from beneath his eyes with her thumbs.

"Hey, no," she says softly. "Mac, what's wrong? Talk to me."

"Nothing," he answers, and when Antha gives him a look, he can only shrug and shake his head.

"There's...it's nothing. For the first time in years there's nothing wrong. Gunners are leaving me alone. Cure is on its way to Duncan. There's...there's n-nothing wrong..."

_Nothing except that it's my fault you're in this bed, it's my fault you almost died, it's my fault you lost one of the last things you had from before the war, nothing except that I don't understand how you could risk your life for my son before you ever found your own, nothing except that I haven't changed at all, I'm still the same stupid selfish son of a bitch I've always been -_

"Mac." Antha's voice is reproachful. "Whatever you're thinking, stop thinking it. Right now."

He frowns at her. "How do you know what I'm thinking?"

"I don't," she says. "But I can tell from your face that whatever it is involves you hating yourself, and there's no reason for you to do that."

"An, you almost died. For me. For Duncan - my kid you've never even met." He swallows hard, pushing her hands away, unwilling to let her see him cry any more than she has. "Seems like everyone I care about keeps doing that, and I...I'm not so sure I deserve it."

"Your son deserves to live," Antha says. "And you deserve to see him live."

"Not so sure about that last part, either," MacCready mumbles. "I can't thank you enough for what you've done, boss. I don't think I can ever repay you, either, but if it takes me the rest of my life I'm damn sure gonna try."

"Mac, I've already told you, I'm not keeping score."

"I know. I know you're not. I just...I've always been better at taking than giving," he sighs, staring down at his folded hands. "Maybe one day I'll learn to get my priorities straight."

"I think your priorities are fine," Antha says. "I want you to be happy, Mac. That's all."

MacCready snorts bitter laughter. "Don't think I'd recognize it if I felt it, it's been so long."

He doesn't realize how that sounds until Antha reaches over and takes his hands in hers.

"You will," she murmurs. "I promise. Now, it's your turn to talk. You didn't sleep last night, did you?"

"Er, not...not much."

Antha cocks an eyebrow.

"All right, no," he admits. "Not at all. I haven't slept since you locked me in that damn armory."

Antha squeezes his hands, then moves over on the little twin bed.

"Well, I didn't sleep last night because Hancock snores loud enough to wake the dead, so come on - hey, don't look at me like that," she adds, grinning as his face floods with heat all over again. "I promise, I have no ulterior motives. I'm just not supposed to get out of bed and I don't want to make you climb the loft to the couch with your leg. How is that, by the way?"

"Medic picked out a bit of debris, then I made him cauterize it," MacCready mumbles. He shrugs out of his duster - embarrassed or not, there's no arguing with Antha.

"Jesus, Mac. Be more of a badass."

He rolls his eyes as he kicks off his boots. "I think you've got me beat in that department, boss."

"Yeah, right." Antha laughs, shifting to her good side as she lays down; MacCready does the same, and suddenly they both realize that their injuries will force them to sleep facing one another. They freeze; a moment later Antha's lips twitch into a smirk and they both dissolve into an irrational fit of giggling.

"Go to sleep, Mac," she murmurs at length, pushing his hair back from his forehead.

The touch sends such a pleasurable chill up his spine he almost loses his head and kisses her. As it is, he stops himself short while he's still leaning in, resting his forehead against hers instead.

"You first," he mumbles, and he isn't sure whether he's referring to sleep or to something else.

Her smirk softens into a faint smile. "We'll see." She nudges his forehead with hers, then curls up as much as her injuries will allow and closes her eyes.

MacCready gazes at her, heart pounding, stomach fluttering, wondering how he'll ever be able to sleep when she's this close, but his exhaustion is greater than his nerves. Not long after Antha's breath evens out, MacCready dozes off, soon settling into a deep and dreamless sleep.  


**Author's Note:**

>  **Stimpak** : A powerful combination of synthetic adrenaline, painkiller, and blood coagulant, the Stimpak is meant to keep you on your feet and fighting long enough to escape immediate danger. For basic injuries that may be more than enough, but for severe ones like broken bones, deep stab wounds, and gunshot wounds, additional medical attention is required as soon as possible. As with any powerful drug, injecting too many Stimpaks within a short amount of time has unpleasant side effects, including but not limited to high blood pressure, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting.


End file.
